I 


OF  THE 

U  N I VLRS  I T Y 
Of  ILLINOIS 
From  the  Library  of 

Dr.  R.  E.  Hieronymus 
1942 

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American  Child  and  Moloch 

of  To-day 


American  Child  and 
Moloch  of  To-day 

(Elftlii  ICabnr  Jhrunrr 


DAVIS  WASGATT  CLARK 

Author  of  “  From  a  Cloud 
of  Witnesses,”  etc. 


CINCINNATI :  JENNINGS  AND  GRAHAM 
NEW  YORK:  EATON  AND  MAINS 


Copyright, 

By  Jennings  and  Graham, 
1907 


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'  i  'HIS  book  has  not  its  mate  in  the 
**■  market.  Its  method  is  its  own.  It 
touches  every  phase  of  a  vital  question, 
but  in  briefest  terms,  so  making  it  es¬ 
sentially  a  handy  spare-moment  volume. 
Aside  from  the  likenesses  of  the  two  men 
who  are  the  living  representatives  of  the 
reform  in  America,  the  snapshots  of  chil¬ 
dren  marked  for  sacrifice  are  an  argu¬ 
ment  in  themselves.  The  Excerpta  form 
a  <( seed  plot”  to  which  the  reader  will 
return ,  and  over  which  he  will  brood. 
The  history  of  the  movement  is  given 
from  inception  to  date,  but  all  in  a  nut¬ 
shell.  The  book  recognizes  its  own  in¬ 
troductory  character,  and  so  ends  with 
a  bibliography  compiled  from  suggestive 
lists  furnished  by  several  of  the  foremost 
specialists. 


—JENNINGS  AND  GRAHAM. 


4 


Table  of  Contents 


PAGE 

Announcement,  5 

Illustrations,  ....  9 

Monograph, . 13 

Notes, . 45 

History, . 53 

Excerpta, . 63 

Bibliography, . 73 


i  r  t  »  •  1  v  *  * 


List  of  Illustrations 

FACING  PAGE 

Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  Frontispiece 

Little  Olga, . 15 

Dr.  Felix  Adler,  24 

The  Stopper  Tier,  -  -  -  -  36 

Senator  Albert  J.  Beveridge,  -  48 

Henrietta  M - ,  -  -  -  -  60 

Willie  M - ,  -  72 


The  Cry  of  the  Children 

*  Do  you  hear  the  children  weeping,  O  my  brothers, 

Ere  the  sorrow  comes  with  years? 

They  are  leaning  their  young  heads  against  their 
mothers, 

And  that  can  not  stop  their  tears. 

*  *  * 

They  are  weeping  in  the  playtime  of  the  others, 

In  the  country  of  the  free. 

*  *  * 

They  look  up  with  their  pale  and  sunken  faces, 

And  their  looks  are  sad  to  see, 

For  the  man’s  hoary  anguish  draws  and  presses 
Down  the  cheeks  of  infancy. 

*  *  * 

Our  blood  splashes  upward,  O  gold-heaper, 

And  your  purple  shows  your  path! 

But  the  child’s  sob  in  the  silence  curses  deeper 
Than  the  strong  man  in  his  wrath. 

— Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning* 


The  hotels  of  this  city  employ  children  of 
twelve  years  of  age  in  occupations  which 
from  the  view  point  of  moral  insurance  can 
only  be  classed  as  extra  hazardous. — The 
Hon.  Charles  S.  Neill ,  Commissioner  of 
Labor ,  Washington,  D.  C. 


Monograph 


“  Who  bids  for  the  little  children — 
Body,  soul,  and  brain  ? 

Who  bids  for  the  little  children — 
Young  and  without  a  stain?” 

—  Charles  Mack  ay. a 


TyjOLOCH3  was  the  grimmest  idol 
ever  made,  and  his  worship  was 
supremely  cruel.  The  image,  ac-  Ancient 
cording  to  the  common  idea,  was  that 
of  a  man  with  the  head  of  a  calf,  from 
mouth  and  nostrils  of  which  smoke  and 
flame  issued  when  fire  was  kindled 
within.  When  the  arms  had  grown 
red  hot,  a  babe  was  plucked  from  its 
mother’s  bosom  and  tossed  into  the  fiery 
embrace  of  the  Moloch. 

It  is  mere  curiosity  and  sentiment 
to  dwell  upon  the  ancient  custom.  Modern 
Do  not  drop  a  tear  for  those  im-  AnaIo^y 
molated  infants!  It  was  far  away 

15 


in  time  and  place.  What  concerns 
us  is  that  something  like  that  is  be¬ 
ing  done  here  and  to-day.  Chil¬ 
dren  are  being  offered  at  the  greedy 
altar  of  commercial  aggrandizement. 
Their  nervous  and  vital  forces  are 
burned  up.  Their  lives  are  put  in 
jeopardy  in  the  midst  of  powerful  and 
relentless  machinery.  The  hours  of 
play,  which  are  the  inalienable  right 
of  childhood,  are  stolen.  The  golden 
opportunities  for  mental  discipline, 
which  will  never  come  again,  are  ruth¬ 
lessly  snatched  away — opportunities 
which,  if  employed,  give  wider  hori¬ 
zon  for  pleasure  and  service  for  a  life¬ 
time.  In  view  of  our  clearer  vision 
of  the  ethical  rights  of  the  individual 
arising  from  the  tutelage  of  thirty 
centuries,  it  is  an  open  question 
whether  we  are  not  greater  sinners 
than  the  Ammonitish  devotees  of  the 

16 


Little  Ola,  8 
years  old,  when 
she  began  work 
in  a  Georgia  cot¬ 
ton  mill.  The 
sun  shining  in 
her  face  causes  a 
slight  frown,  but 
she  has  rosy 
cheeks  and  a 
childlike  expres¬ 
sion. 


This  is  another 
picture  of  little 
Ola,  one  year  after 
she  began  work  in 
the  cotton  mill. 
Her  childhood  has 
gone  forever.  How 
much  was  it  worth 
to  the  mill,  to 
society,  to  her? 


It  is  a  shame  for  a  nation  to  make  its 
young  girls  weary. — John  Ruskin. 


LlbHAfft 

UfHVEfsSITY  Of  ILLINOIS 
UftBANA 


fire-god  Moloch  and  whether  the  ag¬ 
gregate  of  misery  entailed  by  our 
modern  heathenism  is  not  greater. 

The  United  States  Census  for  1900 
shows  1,752,187  children  under  six¬ 
teen  years  of  age  to  be  employed  as  The 

t-\  ,  .  Figures 

wage-earners.  ror  obvious  reasons 
statistics  of  this  class  are  peculiarly 
difficult  to  secure,  and  those  presented 
can,  in  many  instances,  be  easily  shown 
incorrect.4  It  is  believed  that  750,000 
should  be  added  to  the  number  given 
above  to  cover  children  who  are  work¬ 
ing  under  falsified  certificates,  those 
who  are  clandestinely  employed,  and 
for  the  natural  increase  in  the  six  years 
since  the  census  was  taken.  So  that 
upon  a  conservative  estimate  it  may 
be  safely  affirmed  that  there  are,  in 
round  numbers,  2,500,000  boys  and 
girls  under  sixteen  years  of  age  em¬ 
ployed  in  gainful  pursuits,  or  one  in 
2  17 


five  of  the  whole  number.5  Two  out 
of  every  three  are  girls. 

It  is  freely  admitted  that  many  oc¬ 
cupations  are  not  injurious  (as,  for 
Some  example,  some  forms  of  farm  work)  ; 

Conces-  t  •  i  t  i 

sions  that  many  employers  are  guided  by 
ethical  principles;  that  in  most  in¬ 
stances  it  is  better  that  children  should 
be  employed  rather  than  be  idle  and  on 
the  street,  and  that  often  the  wages  of 
children  are  imperatively  needed  for 
the  support  of  the  family,  or  of  af¬ 
flicted  parents;  and,  finally,  that  from 
the  ranks  of  this  army  of  employed 
children  many  have  risen  to  high  sta- 
The  tions  in  life.  But  when  all  these  con¬ 
tention  cessions  are  made,  it  must  be  acknowl¬ 
edged  that  child  labor  is  susceptible 
of  abuse  and  that  abuses  actually  exist. 

Take,  for  example,  the  boys  of  the 
coal-mines  and  quarries.  There  is  an 
army  of  twenty-five  regiments  of  a  full 

18 


thousand  each.  Every  soldier  is  under 
sixteen  years  of  age.  Many  do  not  see 
the  light  of  the  sun  for  weeks  at  a  time. 
These  are  the  underground  door¬ 
keepers,  mule-drivers,  and  others  who 
mine  the  ledges  which  are  too  low 
to  be  easily  mined  by  men  of  full 
stature.  There  are  eight  thousand 
breaker  boys  in  Pennsylvania  alone. 
They  sit  astride  the  chute,  regulat¬ 
ing  the  flow  of  coal  with  their  feet, 
and  pick  out  the  foreign  substances, 
slate,  and  rock,  as  they  pass.  So 
great  is  the  dust  that  they  could  not 
see  the  coal  at  their  very  feet  but 
for  the  mine  lamps  on  their  caps. 
It  is  said  that  for  an  hour  after 
the  “breakers”  shut  down  this  great 
cloud  of  dust  hangs  like  a  pall  over 
the  works.6 

Take  another  example.  There  are 
80,000  boys  and  girls,  mostly  the  latter, 

19 


Breaker 

Boys 


employed  in  the  textile  factories  of  the 
United  States;  all  are  under  sixteen 
years  of  age.  Twenty  thousand  are 
under  twelve  years.  They  work  in  the 

The  Mill  most  deafening,  nerve-racking  clatter 

Children  any  fact0ry  on  earth,  and  in  a  dust¬ 
laden  atmosphere.  Hours  are  in  some 
instances  unreasonably  long,  and  there 
are  night  as  well  as  day  shifts.7 

Again,  7,500  boys  are  employed  in 
the  glass  factories.  Sixty  per  centum 
of  these  are  “on”  at  night  every  other 
Nimble  week.  The  work  requires  quickness 

Fellows 

•  and  precision.  It  involves  extra  nerv¬ 
ous  strain.  The  temperature  of  the 
factory  is  of  necessity  abnormal,  and 
there  are  injurious  variations  from 
high  to  low,  from  the  blistering  heat 
of  the  furnace  to  the  night  air  outside. 
The  demand  is,  as  a  proprietor  said, 
for  “nimble  little  fellows.”  By  accu¬ 
rate  measurement  it  was  found  that 

20 


one  of  these  swiftly-moving,  small 
workmen,  a  “carry-in-boy”  as  he  is 
called,  runs  back  and  forth  at  his  task 
an  aggregate  distance  of  twenty-two 
miles  in  eight  hours,  or  2.7  miles  per 
hour,  for  which  he  receives  forty  cents 
per  diem.8 

There  are  12,000  children  employed 
in  tobacco  factories,  which  are  some¬ 
times  called  “kindergartens,”  because 
so  many  very  little  children  work  in 
them.  A  common  wage  is  eight  to  ten 
cents  per  hundred  stogies.  The  hours 
of  work  often  range  in  home  factories 
from  fourteen  to  sixteen  per  diem.  As 
distinct  cases  of  nicotine  poisoning 
are  said  to  have  been  diagnosed  among 
these  young  and  tender  employees  as 
among  those  who  from  habit  use  to¬ 
bacco  in  cigarettes. 

Space  is  lacking  to  write  specifically 
of  other  classes  of  child  laborers.  The 

21 


Tobacco 

Factory 

Kinder¬ 

gartens 


Miscel¬ 

laneous 


The 

Problem 


A  Fin¬ 
ish  to 
Schooling 


census  reports  10,000  in  saw-mills; 
7,000  in  laundries,  2,000  in  bakeries, 
42,000  as  messengers,  138,000  in  serv¬ 
ice.9  Besides  these,  there  is  the  great 
uncounted  army  of  newsboys  and 
others  engaged  in  street  trades. 

The  question  is  pertinent:  How  does 
child  labor  affect  the  child  and  adult 
life  of  this  nation? 

First:  It  practically  involves  depri¬ 
vation  of  educational  facilities  for  those 
so  engaged.  It  is  true  some  philan¬ 
thropic  employers  have  instituted 
schools  in  connection  with  their  works, 
and  have  employed  teachers.  Many 
cities  also  have  free  night-schools  and 
mechanics’  institutes,  of  which  too 
much  can  not  be  said  in  praise.  But 
it  is  evident  that  while  in  exceptional 
instances  good  use  may  be  made  of 
these  facilities,  as  a  rule  the  boy  or 
girl  who  works  by  day  can  not  or  will 

22 


not  study  by  night,  and  vice  versa.  On 
the  other  hand,  competition  in  every 
form  of  mercantile,  mechanical,  and 
professional  life  becomes  constantly 
more  severe,  and  better  scholastic 
equipment  is  more  and  more  the  im¬ 
perative  condition  of  success.  The  un¬ 
educated  becomes  the  inefficient,  is  so 
classed  and  treated,  and  child  laborers 
are  in  large  measure  perforce  com¬ 
paratively  uneducated. 

An  authentic  and  pathetic  story  is 
told  of  an  Italian  boy  of  ten  years  of 
age,  placed  in  a  school  in  the  West  Mile  and  a 

TT.  .  .  t  .  t T  .  Half  from 

Virginia  coal  region.  He  was  embar-  Dayiight 
rassed  by  having  to  go  into  the  grade 
with  the  smallest  children.  An  older 
Italian  girl  helped  him  at  his  lessons, 
so  that  in  an  incredibly  short  space  of 
time — two  years — he  is  said  to  have 
passed  seven  grades  and  shown  a  phe¬ 
nomenal  thirst  and  capacity  for  know!* 

23 


edge.  What  happened?  At  twelve 
years  of  age  he  was  taken  by  his  father 
into  the  mine,  a  mile  and  a  half  from 
sunlight,  and  never  saw  the  school¬ 
room  again.  What  Leonardo  or  An¬ 
gelo  may  have  been  nipped  in  the 
bud!10  And  native-born  American 
girls  and  boys  are  suffering  similar 
privation.11  The  nation’s  loss  is  even 
greater  than  that  of  the  individual. 
It  is  America’s  shame  that  she  does 
not  rank  up  with  the  progressive  na¬ 
tions,  England,  Germany,  France,  and 
others,  in  her  care  of  working  children 
in  the  matter  of  educational  conditions, 
but  is  classed  with  belated  Russia  in 
this  particular,  which  is  admitted  to  be 
of  first  importance.12 

Second:  Child  labor  affects  the 
physical  life  of  the  child  in  a  deleteri¬ 
ous  manner.  Nothing  has  been  said  of 
the  employment  of  very  little  children, 

24 


DR.  FELIX  ADLER 


Chairman  The  National  Child  Labor 
Committee;  Founder  the  Society  for  Ethi¬ 
cal  Culture;  Of  the  first  free  kindergarten 
in  America;  Working  Men’s  School; 
Tenement  House  Building  Company; 
District  Nursing;  Professor  of  Political 
and  Social  Ethics,  Columbia  University; 
Theodore  Roosevelt  professor  in  the  Uni¬ 
versity  of  Berlin,  1908-9. 


ithfiAH, 

WIJVER8ITV  Of  iUiw^3 
URRANA 


because  it  is  believed  to  be  relatively 
exceptional.  However,  Jane  Addams 
saw  a  little  girl  of  five  years  of  age  Baby 
walking  up  and  down  her  lane  in  the  Mechamcs 
spindle  room  of  a  Southern  mill  at  2.00 
A.  M.,  and  holding  her  snuff-stick 
against  her  “milk-teeth.”13  A  child  of 
four  years  was  found  in  a  New  York 
canning  factory.  Dr.  Daniels  declares 
that  children  of  three  years  straighten 
out  tobacco  leaves,  stick  together  the 
materials  which  form  the  stems  of  arti¬ 
ficial  flowers;  children  of  four  put 
covers  on  paper  boxes,  others  between 
four  and  five  sew  on  buttons  and  pull 
out  basting  threads.  Children  are 
sometimes  tied  to  their  chairs  so  that 
if  they  fall  asleep  they  shall  not  be  hurt 
by  falling  upon  the  floor.  John  infant 
Spargo  tells  of  a  four-year-old  child  Laborerb 
helping  her  mother  make  artificial 
flowers  in  a  New  York  tenement  house 

25 


at  eleven  o’clock  at  night.  The  mother 
was  saying  to  the  child,  who  was 
asleep,  but  whose  little  hands  were 
still  moving  automatically:  “Don’t 
sleep !  Do  n’t  sleep !  Just  a  few  more ! 
Just  a  few  more!”14  The  danger  of 
maiming  and  fatal  accident  to  chil¬ 
dren  employed  in  use  of  or  proximity 
to  machinery  is  for  obvious  reasons 
much  greater  than  in  the  case  of  adults. 
The  risk  is  estimated  to  be  from  250 
to  300  per  centum  against  the  child. 
A  doctor  in  a  Southern  mill  city  ad¬ 
mitted  recently  that  he  had  personally 
amputated  over  one  hundred  such  very 
small  fingers  that  they  might  be  called 
baby  fingers.15 

This  employment  of  very  little  chil¬ 
dren  is  the  disgrace  of  current  eco¬ 
nomic  conditions.  The  inhumanity  of 
it  is  patent  on  the  face,  but  scarcely 
more  so  than  in  the  case  of  children 

26 


from  eight  to  sixteen  years  of  age. 
The  physical  ill  effects  of  premature 
toil  can  scarcely  be  overestimated. 
The  permission  to  employ  children  in 
deleterious  trades  amid  arsenical 
fumes,  mercurial  and  nicotine  poisons, 
bleaching  chemicals,  and  rotting 
paste,  is  a  consenting  to  their  death 
on  the  part  of  the  State.  But,  even 
where  the  conditions  are  passably 
sanitary,  the  physical  effects  of  this 
exploiting  of  children  is  disastrous 
in  the  extreme.  Certain  groups  of 
undeveloped  muscles  suffer  excessive 
fatigue,  muscular  degeneration  re¬ 
sults,  followed  by  more  or  less  per¬ 
manent  deformation.  Besides  such 
specific  ills  as  the  breaking  down  of 
the  bony  arch  of  the  foot,  popularly 
called  the  “flat  foot,”  and  rotary  lateral 
curvature  of  the  spine,  there  is  a  gen¬ 
eral  collapse  of  the  frame,  which 

27 


Flat 

Foot  and 
Rickets 


crowds  the  heart  and  lungs  abnormally 
and  becomes  a  menace  to  health  and 
the  normal  tenure  of  life.16  In  the 
Southern  cities  in  which  textile  fac¬ 
tories  have  sprung  up,  a  new  class  is 
Factory  said  to  be  already  defined  and  is  called 
retmism  “cotton_mip  type.”  So  that  under 

the  deadly  shadow  of  the  factory  an 
American  cretinism  is  acutally  appear¬ 
ing.17  Dress  the  child  in  his  Sunday 
clothes  (if  he  has  any),  and  yet  you 
can  easily  distinguish  him  in  a  bunch 
of  other  children  if  he  has  been  at 
work  any  length  of  time.  The  mark 
is  a  certain  pallor  of  complexion  and 
tenseness  of  form.  John  Ruskin  said, 
sententiously,  that  to  be  a  man  too  soon 
is  to  be  a  small  man,  and  he  said,  sym¬ 
pathetically,  “It  is  a  shame  for  a  nation 
to  make  its  young  girls  weary.ms 

A  general  reference  only  in  passing 
is  made  to  the  effect  of  child  labor 

28 


upon  public  morals.  The  matter,  of 
course,  defies  tabulation  and  eludes  the 
census  taker.  (But  it  is  apparent  on  the 
face  of  it  that  the  promiscuous  herding 
together  of  men,  women,  and  children ; 
the  high  nervous  tension  incident  to  the 
care  of  machinery,  or  even  proximity 
to  it;  the  alternations  of  extremes  of 
heat  and  cold;  irregularity  in  sleep 
and  diet;  the  temptations  of  the  night; 
the  demoralizing  sense  of  injustice  re¬ 
ceived  ;  the  reflex  immoral  effect  upon 
parents  who  perjure  themselves  to  se¬ 
cure  certificates,  and  who  prematurely 
bind  their  children  to  work  for  the  sake 
of  their  wages;  the  temptation  to  chil¬ 
dren  incident  to  the  securing  of  money 
independently  from  their  parents,  all 
are  a  standing  menace  to  virtue  and 
the  best  type  of  morals.  Although 
many,  in  spite  of  a  vicious  environ¬ 
ment,  keep  themselves  unsullied,  yet  it 

29 


Morals 
and  Im- 
m  orals 


will  be  generally  admitted  that  it  is  a 
fruitful  cause  of  juvenile  delinquency 
and  that  the  State  should  not  tolerate 
the  placing  of  young  children  in  im¬ 
moral  situations. 

The  commercial  folly  of  this  ex¬ 
ploiting  of  children  in  the  field  of 
Colts  labor  ought  to  be  its  own  correction, 

to  Plows 

aside  from  all  pleas  of  humanity.  It 
is  the  putting  of  colts  to  plows.  It  is 
the  grinding  of  seed  corn.  It  is  mort¬ 
gaging  future  wage-earning  power  for 
immediate  gain.  For  every  dollar 
earned  by  a  child  under  fourteen  years 
of  age,  tenfold  will  be  taken  from  his 
wage-earning  capacity  in  later  years. 
This  process  is  the  multiplying  of  the 
disabled  and  diseased,  for  whose  keep, 
in  whole  or  in  part,  the  State  must 
ultimately  provide.  This  short  cut  to 
immediate  aggrandizement,  while  ap¬ 
parently  remunerative  to  the  few,  is 

30 


expensive  to  the  people  at  large. 
There  is  a  subtle  retaliation  in  that 
economic  law  by  which  wages  tend  to 
gravitate  to  the  child  standard,  so  that  what 

•  i  t  i  /*  *  i  C  omes 

it  comes  to  pass  that  a  whole  family  of  It 
works  its  finger-ends  off  for  an  aggre¬ 
gate  of  wage  which  amounts  to  that 
which  the  father  alone  could  earn  in 
work  from  which  children  are  ex¬ 
cluded.  Again,  as  a  rule  no  appre¬ 
ciable  advantage  accrues  to  the  child 
in  the  way  of  an  increment  of  skill, 
for  the  child  laborer  almost  never  be¬ 
comes  the  skilled  laborer.  From  every 
point  of  view  the  commercial  success 
arising  from  the  employment  of  child 
labor  is  success  in  appearance,  not 
reality;  temporary,  not  permanent. 
When  will  it  be  learned  that  what 
is  done  of  good  or  evil  to  the  child 
is  done  of  good  or  evil  to  the  State? 

If  ever  the  failure  to  heed  the  warn- 

31 


ings  of  a  statesman  had  illustration,  it 
is  in  the  now  notorious  case  of  English 
disaster  in  the  Boer  War.  Lord 
Macaulay  said,  on  the  floor  of  Parlia- 
Hooiigan  ment:19  “Intense  labor  beginning  too 

Yeomanry  earty  life*  continued  too  long  every 
day,  stunting  the  growth  of  the  mind, 
leaving  no  time  for  healthful  exercise, 
no  time  for  intellectual  culture,  must 
impair  all  those  high  qualities  that 
have  made  our  country  great.  Your 
overworked  boys  will  become  a  feeble 
and  ignoble  race  of  men,  the  parents 
of  a  more  feeble  progeny;  nor  will  it 
be  long  before  the  deterioration  of  the 
laborer  will  injuriously  affect  those 
very  interests  to  which  his  physical  and 
moral  interests  have  been  sacrificed. 
If  ever  we  are  forced  to  yield  the 
foremost  place  among  commercial  na¬ 
tions,  we  shall  yield  it  to  some  people 
pre-eminently  vigorous  in  body  and 

32 


mind.”  In  spite  of  this  faithful  warn¬ 
ing  from  one  who  once  defended  child 
labor,  but  who  had  suffered  change  of 
opinion,  England  went  on  feeding  her 
young  children  to  the  insatiable  maws 
of  the  factories  at  Manchester  and 
Birmingham,  with  the  result  that  she 
found  herself  unable  to  equip  an  Eng¬ 
lish  army  that  could  compete  with  the 
Boers.  The  yeomanry  of  “Merrie 
England”  as  a  type  was  extinct  and 
supplanted  by  a  genus  stunted  in 
stature  and  anemic  in  body,  named 
“Hooligan”20  in  derision. 

Aristotle21  dreamed  of  an  emancipa¬ 
tion  that  was  to  come  through  the  in¬ 
vention  and  employment  of  machinery,  Phiios- 
affirming  that  if  tools  could  do  the  ^isioVof 
work  there  would  be  “no  need  of  Machinery 
slaves  for  lords.”  But  with  the  reign 
of  machinery,  instead  of  the  philoso¬ 
pher’s  dream  having  fulfillment,  there 
3  33 


came  a  new  and  in  some  respects  a 
more  baneful  slavery.  It  was  found 
that  children  could  mind  the  machine 
Seif-  and  a  great  saving  in  wages  to  em- 

Shutties  Payers  thus  be  made.  The  “Iron 
and  Plectra  Man,”  the  machine,  is  the  modern 

Moloch  burning  up  the  children  by 
the  thousand  in  the  relentless  embrace 
of  its  red-hot  arms.  Little  boys  and 
girls,  some  almost  infants,  are  being 
fed  like  cheap  raw  material  to  this  in¬ 
satiable  mechanism  of  modern  life. 
No  wonder  this  evil  has  been  stigma¬ 
tized  as  “the  worst  crime  of  civiliza¬ 
tion,”  “the  martyrdom  of  children,” 
“the  new  slavery,”  “the  needless  de¬ 
struction  of  children,”  and  that,  finally, 
the  affirmation  is  made  that  “Child 
labor  is  murder.” 

This  evil  demands  correction.  This 
is  distinctively  the  reform  of  our  age. 
It  belongs,  not  to  the  last  nor  to  the 

34 


next,  but  to  this .  The  abuse  is  incident 
to  the  present  use  of  machinery,  the 
demands  of  which  are  large  and  im¬ 
perious.  The  temptations  to  ignore  the  Cure  im- 
situation  are  insidious  and  strong.  The  peratlve 
social  conscience  is,  however,  becom¬ 
ing  awakened.  The  process  is  irri¬ 
tatingly  laggard,  but  it  has  undoubt¬ 
edly  begun.  The  cause,  fortunately, 
is  largely  in  the  hands  of  experts  and 
specialists,  who  present  the  winnowed 
facts  relating  to  the  social,  legal,  and 
charitable  phases  of  the  subject.  These 
investigators  can  not  be  put  to  confu¬ 
sion  by  the  cunning  retainers  of  great 
corporations.  The  old,  hysterical 
methods  of  denunciation  and  the  No  Closet 
sweeping  generalizations  from  alleged 
facts,  gathered  by  amateur  investi¬ 
gators,  are  seen  to  be  effete.  Conse¬ 
quently,  what  progress  is  made  is  real. 

Ground  gained  can  be  held.  No 

35 


1  4  \  '  ‘  ' 


humiliating  retreats  are  necessary. 
Every  vantage  is  buttressed  by  perti- 
Sodo-  nent  and  reliable  data.  The  National 
Experts  Child  Labor  Committee,  having  the 
co-operation  of  the  Federated  Wo¬ 
man’s  Clubs,  the  Consumers’  League, 
the  Juvenile  Courts,  the  Trades 
Unions,  the  Social  Settlements,  the 
State  Boards  of  Charities  and  Correc¬ 
tion,  the  Press,  the  Public  School,  the 
Church,  the  individual  State,  and  the 
National  Government,  as  the  latter  ex¬ 
presses  itself  in  the  messages  of  the 
President  and  the  law  now  pending  in 
Congress,  have  without  question  begun 
to  write  the  epitaph  of  child  labor  in 
America. 

Kaulbach,  in  his  mural  painting,22 
seen  with  such  advantage  from  the 
marble  staircase  of  the  New  Royal  Mu¬ 
seum  in  Berlin,  represents  two  battles 
in  progress  simultaneously.  One  on  the 

36 


A  BOY  WIIO  TIES  GLASS  STOP¬ 
PERS  ON  BOTTLES 


He  bends  over  his  work  for  ten  hours 
and  his  task  is  3,600  bottles  a  day. 

As  a  machine  he  is  perfect,  but  the 
hollow  chest,  the  flabby  limbs,  the  dull 
eyes  and  the  quivering  of  every  nerve  in 
moments  of  rest,  tell  the  story  of  the 
waste  of  a  human  life  for  $4  50  a  week. 
He  began  this  work  at  10  years  of  age. 


To  be  a  man  too  soon  is  to  be 
a  small  man. — John  Ruskin. 


LIBRARY 

UWSVEfcSITV  Of  ILLINOIS 
UR8ANA 


lower  plane  is  of  noise  and  garments 
rolled  in  blood.  The  battle  in  the  air 
is  noiseless  and  bloodless.  It  is  a  battle  Battle 
of  spirits.  The  present-day  battle  for  in  !r 
the  child  is  on  the  upper  plane  of  argu¬ 
ment,  appeal,  legislation,  enforcement. 

The  sign  for  the  commencement  of  this 
contest  was  not  a  bugle-blast  or  stac¬ 
cato  voice,  but  the  strangest  sound  that 
ever  fell  upon  the  ears  of  a  legislative  Singular 
body.  It  was  three-quarters  of  a  cen-  Sisnal 
tury  ago  when  Michael  Sadler,  M.  P., 
made  the  groined  roof  of  the  House  of 
Parliament  echo  as  he  struck  the  table 
before  him  with  a  cat-o’-nine-tails 
with  which  English  children  had  been 
actually  lashed  that  day  to  their  work 
in  English  mills.  In  obedience  to  that 
novel  but  significant  signal  there  gath-  English 
ered  the  immortal  company  of  those  Rei0rmifts 
who,  through  the  obloquy  and  violence 
of  opposition,  championed  the  cause 

37 


of  the  English  working  child :  Robert 
Owen,  Sir  Robert  Peel  (the  elder),  the 
Earl  of  Shaftesbury  (the  seventh), 
George  Smith,  Charles  Kingsley, 
Frederic  Dennison  Maurice,  Charles 
Dickens,  Thomas  Hood,  Charles  Mac- 
kay,  Gerald  Massey,  and  Elizabeth 
Barrett  Browning.  There  is  rising  in 
American  America  a  devoted  band  of  men  and 

Reformists  ,  .  .  .  .  ... 

women,  destitute,  it  is  true,  of  heraldic 
titles  and  glamor  of  literary  fame,  but 
who  will  be  remembered  for  the 
fidelity  and  skill  with  which  they  pre- 
a  Con-  sented  the  facts  which  finally  awak- 
ened  that  gigantic  and  irresistible 
force — the  national  conscience. 

It  is  now  beginning  to  be  clearly 
defined  that  the  sine  qua  non  of  effec¬ 
tive  child-labor  legislation,  like  that  of 
marriage,  divorce,  education,  and  sani¬ 
tation,  is  uniformity.  Forty-four  vary¬ 
ing  legislative  standards  in  as  many 

38 


different  commonwealths  leads  to  con¬ 
fusion  and  inequity.  The  State  having 
the  lowest  standard  is  a  veritable  bar¬ 
gain  table  on  which  its  children  are 
heaped  to  attract  mills  and  factories 
on  the  hunt  for  cheap  labor.  Uni¬ 
formity  of  legislation  can  only  be  se¬ 
cured  by  national  legislation.  Until 
such  can  be  obtained,  however,  the 
existence  of  any  creditable  State  laws 
should  be  hailed  with  joy  and  their 
enforcement  insisted  upon.  But  ulti¬ 
mately,  and  for  obvious  reasons,  relief 
must  come  through  the  general  gov¬ 
ernment.  The  law  in  its  ideal  form 
will  deal  directly  with  the  matter.  It 
will  not  seek,  as  the  law  lately  intro¬ 
duced  in  Congress,  to  harry  the  manu¬ 
facturers  by  prohibiting  the  carriers  of 
interstate  commerce  from  transporting 
the  products  of  factories  which  employ 
children  under  a  specific  age,  although 

39 


National 
Legisla¬ 
tion  the 
Desider¬ 
atum 


such  a  measure  is  desirable  in  a  tenta¬ 
tive  way  and  as  an  expedient. 

It  is  evident  that  compulsory  edu¬ 
cation  is  the  correlate  of  the  prohibi- 
Schooi  tion  of  child  labor.  The  children 
Street  emptied  from  the  factories  must  be 
gathered  into  the  schools,  or  else  their 
latter  state  is  worse  than  their  former. 
The  streets  are  the  proverbial  schools 
of  vice  and  crime.  If  the  factory  is 
the  Scylla,  the  street  is  the  Charybdis. 
The  child  must  be  piloted  between 
these  competing  evils  to  the  haven  of 
the  school-room. 

Again,  it  must  be  freely  admitted 
that  there  are  numerous  instances 
Scholar-  where,  parents  being  incapacitated,  the 
Pension  child’s  small  earnings  are  imperatively 
necessary  for  the  support  of  a  family. 
Absolute  penury  and  hardship  would 
follow  the  legal  stoppage  of  the  tiny 
stream  of  the  child’s  wage.  To  cover 

40 


such  emergencies,  two  expedients  are 
suggested.  First,  the  institution  of 
Child  Labor  Scholarships  by  general 
subscription;23  second,  Public  School 
Pension,  to  be  paid  out  of  public  funds 
raised  by  general  taxation.24  The 
proposition,  whether  in  the  form  of 
scholarship  or  pension,  is  to  place  in 
the  hands  of  the  family,  week  by  week, 
an  amount  equivalent  to  the  possible 
earnings  of  the  child,  thus  allowing 
the  child  to  attend  school  without 
monetary  loss  to  the  family.  In  either 
case  the  matter  can  be  put  upon  the 
basis  of  equity  without  the  offensive 
tinge  of  charity.  For  example,  a 
widow  rearing  her  children  with  care, 
seeking  for  them  the  best  possible 
equipment  for  life,  deserves  well  of 
the  State  as  one  who  is  performing  the 
highest  possible  function,  namely,  pre¬ 
senting  the  State  with  good  citizens. 


Substitute 
for  Child 
Earnings 


Equity, 
net  Charity 


41 


Safe¬ 

guards 


What  nobler  disposition  of  money 
could  be  made  by  those  who  find 
themselves  in  possession  of  a  surplus? 
One  thoughtful  American  woman,  her¬ 
self  once  an  educator,  is  now  consid¬ 
ering  how  she  shall  dispose  to  the  best 
advantage  of  a  fortune,  the  very  inter¬ 
est  upon  which  pours  in  with  such 
volume  as  to  tax  her  distributing 
powers  to  the  utmost.  In  this  unique 
educational  endowment  the  vast  for¬ 
tune  might  be  kept  intact  forever.25 

Whether  the  pension,  scholarship, 
or  some  other  method  is  ultimately 
adopted,  a  thorough-going  system  of 
registration  and  inspection  must  evi¬ 
dently  be  employed  to  discourage  and 
prevent  fraud.  For  an  office  so  im¬ 
portant  persons  at  once  competent  and 
sympathetic,  and  only  such,  must  be 
chosen.  Remuneration  ought  to  be 
adequate  to  secure  such  service.  The 

42 


office  should  be  considered  a  fairly 
sacred  one,  and  be  filled  by  only  such 
persons  as  are  worthy  to  be  monitors 
to  childhood. 

The  time  is  coming  when  “Wealth” 

and  “Morals”26  can  be  bound  in  the 

same  volume.  When  the  production  Adam 

and  retention  of  wealth  shall  not  be  ^ s 

differentiated  from  the  evolution  and  Volumes 
.  .  .  in  One 

possession  of  moral  sentiments  as  if  the  Binding 
two  must  needs  be  apart,  if  not  anti¬ 
thetical.  When  this  social  millennium 
comes,  foregleams  of  which  are  now 
appearing,  all  commercial  transac¬ 
tions,  both  small  and  great,  will  be  in¬ 
fused  with  the  ethical  spirit.  There 
will  not  be  left  a  mine  or  mill  owner 
to  say,  “This  is  a  business,  not  a  phi¬ 
lanthropy.”  There  will  be  a  universal 
reign  of  rightness,  with  its  concom¬ 
itants,  peace  and  joy  universal.  The 

43 


Child 

and 

Golden 

Age 


modern  Moloch  will  have  fallen,  never 
to  be  set  up  again. 

When  that  blessed  day  breaks,  may 
it  come  quickly!  a  Little  Child  will  be 
seen  in  the  van,  admired  and  guarded 
as  the  most  precious  object  in  an  ad¬ 
vancing  civilization.  As  an  uncon¬ 
scious  conqueror  he  will  lead  captive 
those  hostile  forces  of  commercial 
rapacity  and  cunning  which  once 
threatened  his  young  life.  The  ulti¬ 
mate  and  largest  meaning  of  the  He¬ 
brew  poem  will  then  be  fulfilled.27 


44 


Notes 


11  Behold  thine  images  how  they  stand 

Sovereign  and  sole  throughout  the  land.” 

*  *  * 

Then  Christ  sought  out  an  artisan, 

A  low-browed,  stunted,  haggard  man, 

And  a  motherless  girl,  whose  fingers  thin, 

Pushed  from  her  faintly  want  and  sin. 

These  set  He  in  the  midst  of  them; 

And  as  they  drew  back  their  garment-hem 
For  fear  of  defilement — “Lo,  here,”  said  He, 

“  The  images  ye  have  made  of  Me!” 

— A  Parable ,  James  Russell  Lowell. 


1.  An  unknown  young  man  attached  to  the  Parlia¬ 
mentary  Commission  appointed  to  investigate  the  ^con¬ 
ditions  of  child  labor  in  England,  related  to  Miss  Barrett 
his  harrowing  observations  and  discoveries.  At  the  time 
she  was  apparently  a  hopeless  invalid  and  confined  to  her 
home  in  London.  The  account  so  moved  her  that  she 
wrote  the  poem  which  proved  an  incalculable  contribution 
to  the  cause  then  in  its  inception. 

2.  Of  this  poem,  the  Prince  Consort,  with  the  consent 
of  the  author,  published  large  editions,  distributing  them 
in  tract  form. 

3.  Hastings  in  Loco.  Melech,  popularly  but  errone¬ 
ously  called  Moloch.  Common  idea  as  to  nature  of  image 
proves  legendary.  Effort  to  shrive  Ammonites  from  sac¬ 
rifice  of  children  fails.  Instead  of  passing  them,  as 
affirmed,  between  two  fires  unhurt  and  as  sign  of  purifica¬ 
tion,  probably  they  were  directly  committed  to  the  flame. 
Abraham  may  have  translated  the  universal  custom  into  a 
divine  command  to  immolate  Isaac.  The  divine  refusal 
as  related  in  the  story  may  have  been  only  the  natural 
awakening  to  the  consciousness  that  the  proposed  deed 
was  incongruous  and  inhuman. 

47 


4.  U.  S.  Census,  1900. — 219  under  16  years  of  age 
reported  employed  in  500  canning  factories,  but  300  were 
found  by  an  inspector  in  a  single  factory  of  New  York. 

5.  More  children  under  15  years  of  age  employed  in 
United  States  than  in  England,  Italy,  or  Germany  in 
proportion  to  the  population. 

* 

6.  Owen  R.  Lovejoy. — American  Academy  Political 
and  Social  Science  Annals,  Vol.  XXVII,  No.  2,  March, 
1906,  Philadelphia. 

7.  A.  J.  McKelway. — Ibid.  Vol.  XXVII. 

8.  Owen  R.  Lovejoy. — Ibid.  Vol.  XXVII. 

9.  United  States  Census,  1900. 

10.  Owen  R.  Lovejoy. — Extempore  address,  Cincin¬ 
nati,  December  15,  1906. 

* 

11.  68  per  cent  of  children  employed  in  cotton  mills 
of  North  Carolina  are  illiterate. 

* 

12.  Florence  Kelley. — American  Academy  Political 
and  Social  Science  Annals,  Vol.  XXVII,  March,  1906, 
Philadelphia. 

13.  Jane  Addams. — American  Academy  of  Political 
and  Social  Science  Annals,  Vol.  XXV,  No.  3,  May,  1905. 

48 


SENATOR  ALBERT  J.  BEV¬ 
ERIDGE 


Himself  a  child-laborer;  Plow-boy  at  12; 
On  a  railroad  fill  at  14;  Logger  and  team¬ 
ster  at  16;  United  States  Senator  for 
Indiana;  Author  of  the  Beveridge-Parsons 
Child-Labor  bill,  which  marks  the  first 
attempt  by  the  Federal  Government,  to 
cope  with  the  evil. 


IWlAffv 

wiVEfcsrr v  of  luiwts 

URBAH& 


14.  John  Spargo. — The  Bitter  Cry  of  the  Children. 
1906,  Macmillan,  New  York  and  London. 

& 

15.  Last  month  a  child  of  seven  years  and  nine  months 
had  its  fingers  cut  off  in  a  Georgia  mill. — Dr.  A.  J. 
McKelway  before  American  Association  for  Advancement 
of  Science,  New  Orleans,  January  1,  1906. 

16.  Dr.  Albert  H.  Freiberg. — Address,  “  Some  of 
the  Ultimate  Physical  Effects  of  Premature  Toil.” — Third 
Annual  Meeting  National  Child  Labor  Committee,  Cin¬ 
cinnati,  December  13-15,  1906. 

17.  Robert  Owen. — Mills.,  those  receptacles  in  too 
many  instances  for  living  human  skeletons,  almost  dis¬ 
robed  of  intellect. 

* 

18.  Fatigue  yourself  but  once  to  utter  exhaustion,  and 
to  the  end  of  life  you  shall  not  recover  the  former  vigor  of 
your  frame. — John  Ruskin,  Sesame  and  Lilies  (Preface). 
The  gist  of  the  whole  business  is  that  men  and  their 
property  must  both  be  produced  together,  not  one  to  the 
loss  of  the  other. — John  Ruskin,  Athena  in  the  Heart. 

19.  Lord  Macaulay. — The  Ten  Hour  Bill.  May  22, 
1846.  Miscellanies,  Vol.  II,  Riverside  Press. 

20.  John  Dennie,  Jr. — “  Hooligan.”  Everybody’s 
Magazine,  February,  1905. 

4  49 


21.  Politics  and  Economics  of  Aristotle. — Possession, 
likewise,  is  a  multitude  of  instruments,  and  a  slave  is  a 
certain  animated  possession.  Every  servant  also  is,  as  it 
were,  an  instrument.  For  if  every  instrument  when  com¬ 
manded,  or  from  a  preconception  of  its  master’s  will  could 
accomplish  its  work,  as  is  reported  to  have  been  the  case 
with  the  statues  of  Daedalus,  or  as  the  poets  relate  of  the 
Tripods  of  Vulcan,  that  they  came  spontaneously  to  the 
battle  of  the  gods  :  in  this  case  the  shuttles  themselves 
would  weave  and  the  plectra  would  play  on  the  lyre,  nor 
would  the  architects  be  in  any  want  of  servants,  nor  the 
masters  of  slaves.  What  are  therefore  called  instruments 
are  effective  organs. 

22.  Battle  of  the  Huns. — By  the  pupils  of  Kaulbach, 
Echler  and  Muhr,  and  after  his  designs. 

23.  First  made  by  Miss  Lillian  Wald,  of  New  York. 
Investigation  of  practical  trial  of  the  Child  Labor  Scholar¬ 
ship  System  in  New  York  City  for  the  year  1906,  discloses 
the  following  facts:  Total  applications,  345;  Refused  as 
not  requiring  aid,  203;  Number  aided,  142;  Individual 
appropriations  from  $1  to  $3  per  week  ;  $2,500  found 
ample  to  cover  legitimate  cases  ;  $3,500  thought  necessary 
for  1907. 

* 

24.  This  law  successfully  operates  in  Switzerland,  and 
has  for  a  series  of  years.  For  absence  from  school  without 
sufficient  excuse  the  pension  is  docked  so  much  per  diem. 

* 

25.  Under  the  provisions  of  the  Russell  Sage  Fund  of 
$10,000,000,  just  created  (March,  1907)  by  Mrs.  Sage,  ap¬ 
propriations  could  be  made  to  Child  Labor  Scholarships. 

50 


26.  Inquiry  into  the  Nature  and  Causes  of  the  Wealth 
of  Nations. — Adam  Smith,  1723-1790  A.  D.  Theory  of 
Moral  Sentiments. — Ibid.  Depreciation  of  the  pioneer  and 
prince  of  political  economists,  who  is  as  yet  unsurpassed, 
would  be  impossible  if  attempted.  His  “  Wealth”  while 
primarily  an  exhibition  of  social  phenomena  is  not  desti¬ 
tute  of  “Moral  Sentiment.”  In  point  of  fact  no 
economic  writer  insists  more  upon  the  principle  “put 
yourself  in  the  other’s  place.”  He  affirms  that  moral 
sentiments  arise  from  the  principle  of  our  nature  which 
leads  us  to  enter  into  the  situations  of  other  men  and  to 
partake  with  them  in  the  passions  which  those  situations 
have  a  tendency  to  excite.”  He  even  declares  the  quest 
of  wealth  to  spring  from  “  a  regard  to  the  sentiments  of 
mankind,”  and  to  be  a  consequence  of  the  human  desire 
of  human  sympathy. 

27.  Isaiah  xi. 


51 


The  deepest  tragedy  of  the  ages  has  been 
crime  against  childhood,  and  our  own  age 
and  our  own  nation  is  still  contributing  to 
that  tragedy.  The  brutal  strength  of  self¬ 
ishness  has  always  trampled  upon  the  weak¬ 
ness  and  helplessness  of  the  child.  A  little 
child  shall  at  least  lead  the  world;  but  child¬ 
hood  has  been  passing  and  must  still  pass  to 
to  that  leadership  through  a  fearful  baptism 
of  blood  and  wrong.  In  the  meanwhile  a 
child  will  be  the  judge  of  the  world.  Prog¬ 
ress  is  measured  by  the  status  accorded  to 
childhood.  No  nation  can  rise  above  its 
deliberate  or  tolerated  injustice,  and  no 
injustice  is  more  unpardonable  than  wrong 
against  the  innocence  and  weakness  of 
childhood. — J.  T.  McFarland . 


History 


I  have  read  of  those  who  sacrificed  their 
children  to  Moloch,  but  they  were  a  merci¬ 
ful  people  compared  with  Englishmen  of  the 
nineteenth  century. — The  Earl  of  Shaftes¬ 
bury:  Hodders ’  Life ,  Volume  /,  page  155. 


If  the  series  of  inventions  which  brought  the 
arts  of  spinning  textile  fibers  to  perfection  makes 
a  romance,  the  application  of  these  inventions,  in 
the  gigantic  factory  system  of  to-day,  makes  a 
tragedy.  Physical  strength  was  no  longer  neces¬ 
sary  when  artificial  power  could  be  applied. 
A  man  was  not  needed  when  the  weaver’s  heavy 
beam  was  discarded.  The  skill  of  an  adult  also 
was  not  required  when  automatic  machinery 
took  the  place  of  the  primitive  spindle  and  shut¬ 
tle.  The  possibility  of  utilizing  children  at  low 
wages,  in  the  place  of  skilled  spinners  and  weav¬ 
ers,  thus  presented  itself.  Greed  took  advantage 
of  that  possibility,  and  so  to  the  little  slaves  of 
the  mines  and  brickyards  of  England  were  added 
those  of  the  mills.  The  barbarism  practiced 
under  this  system  is  incredible,  and  defies  ex¬ 
aggeration. 

To  Sir  Robert  Peel,  Sr.,  belongs  the  honor  of 
presenting  the  first  legislative  measure  for  the  re¬ 
lief  of  the  child  laborer.  He  did  this  in  his 
Apprentice  Bill,  an  act  to  govern  English  mills, 

55 


passed  by  Parliament  in  1802.  A  storm  of  pro¬ 
test  was  raised  against  the  bill.  It  was  declared 
radical  and  even  revolutionary.  The  financial 
ruin  of  the  country  was  freely  prophesied  as  the 
inevitable  result. 

In  1815  Sir  Robert  Peel  secured  the  appoint¬ 
ment  of  a  Parliamentary  Commission  to  inquire 
into  the  expediency  of  extending  the  Apprentice¬ 
ship  Act  to  children  of  every  description.  Re¬ 
ports  were  presented  in  1816,  1817,  and  1818. 
The  extension  was  provided  for  by  law  in  1819. 
In  the  same  year,  the  employment  of  children 
under  nine  years  of  age  was  forbidden,  and  the 
working  hours  of  children,  of  from  nine  to  six¬ 
teen  years  of  age,  were  limited  to  twelve.  In 
1825  a  partial  holiday  for  children  was  made 
compulsory.  In  1831,  night-work  for  all  under 
twenty-one  years  of  age  was  forbidden,  and  the 
working-day  for  those  under  eighteen  was  fixed 
at  eleven  hours.  In  1833  Lord  Ashley  (after¬ 
wards  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury)  introduced  a  new 
bill,  extending  still  further  the  provisions  of  the 
former  acts:  (1)  Forbidding  the  employment 
of  children  under  nine  years  of  age;  (2)  limit¬ 
ing  the  hours  to  eight  for  children  between  nine 
and  thirteen  years  of  age;  (3)  hours  of  those 
from  thirteen  to  eighteen,  engaged  in  spinning, 
not  to  exceed  twelve;  night-work,  for  all  under 
eighteen,  was  forbidden;  school  attendance  was 

56 


required,  and  inspectors  were  appointed  to  enforce 
the  law.  In  1835  the  employment  of  children 
in  mines  was  forbidden.  In  1842  Lord  Ashley 
secured  the  appointment  of  a  commission  to 
further  investigate  the  condition  of  working 
children.  In  1843  he  secured  the  passage  of  the 
most  important  measure  placed  upon  the  statute- 
book  up  to  that  date;  namely,  the  extension  of 
all  existing  laws  relating  to  child  labor,  to  every 
form  of  labor  for  gain,  outside  of  agriculture. 
Children  under  thirteen  years  of  age  were  not 
allowed  to  work.  Six  and  one-half  hours  per 
diem,  and  attendance  upon  school  for  the  other 
half  day,  was  made  a  condition  of  employment. 
The  act  of  1847  still  further  reduced  the  working 
day  of  children  under  thirteen  years  of  age,  the 
maximum  being  placed  at  five  hours.  In  1874 
the  minimum  legal  age  of  employable  children 
was  advanced  to  ten  years.  In  1878,  an  act  re¬ 
lating  to  factories  and  workshops  was  passed. 
It  amends  and  consolidates,  in  one  wide,  embrac¬ 
ing  law,  all  the  ground  covered  by  the  sixteen 
acts  passed  between  1802  and  1878,  besides  em¬ 
bracing,  with  some  changes,  the  provisions  of  the 
Public  Health  Act  of  1875  and  the  Elementary 
Education  Act  of  1876.  The  provisions  are  as 
follows:  (1)  Hours  for  employment  of  children 
under  ten  years  of  age,  not  at  all;  under  fourteen, 
one-half  time,  either  morning  or  afternoon,  or 

57 


upon  alternate  days;  (2)  hours  of  work  for 
young  persons  between  fourteen  and  eighteen 
years  of  age,  from  6  A.  M.  to  6  P.  M.,  or  from 
7  A.  M.  to  7  P.  M.,  allowing  two  hours  for 
meals;  all  work  to  cease  Saturday,  1:30  P.  M.; 
(3)  adequate  sanitary  provisions;  (4)  ample 
provisions  against  accidents;  (5)  suitable  num¬ 
ber  of  inspectors,  to  insure  due  execution  of  law; 
(6)  medical  certificate  of  physical  fitness  for 
work  as  required;  (7)  weekly  certificates,  ob¬ 
tained  from  proper  authorities  by  employers, 
showing  required  amount  of  school  attendance 
for  every  child  employed. 

Such  is  the  history  of  English  legislation  in 
behalf  of  children;  none  of  the  evil  prophecies 
made  at  the  beginning  have  been  fulfilled.  On 
the  contrary,  the  material,  political,  intellectual, 
and  moral  conditions  have  all  been  advanced. 
These  laws  have  brought  about  increased  pro¬ 
duction  and  consumption  of  wealth,  have  pro¬ 
moted  the  adoption  of  improved  machinery, 
have  reduced  prices  without  lessening  profits  or 
wages. 

It  has  been  the  folly  and  disaster  of  the 
American  industrial  community  that  it  has  not 
profited  by  the  history  of  England.  The  evils 
have  already,  to  our  deep  disgrace,  been  repeated 
in  too  large  a  measure  in  our  country;  certain 
peculiarities  of  our  form  of  government  make 

58 


legislation  difficult  and  often  ineffective.  Oppor¬ 
tunities  to  exploit  child  labor  abound;  for 
example,  in  England,  legislation  was  by  one 
central  government,  whereas,  in  the  United 
States,  there  are  fifty-two  State  and  territorial 
governments;  diverse  legislation  is  inevitable; 
difficulties  of  investigation  seem  almost  insuper¬ 
able.  Reports  are  meager  or  inaccessible,  and 
appropriations  inadequate.  Under  cover  of  all 
this,  commercial  greed,  with  mercenary  parental 
connivance,  has  already  made  deep  and  almost 
irreparable  inroads  upon  the  young  life  of  the 
nation. 

The  first  organized  protest  (1889)  was  made 
by  The  Trades  Unions.  This  was  supported  by 
The  National  Federated  Woman’s  Clubs,  The 
National  Educational  Association,  The  Congress 
of  Mothers  and  the  Consumers’  League;  but  the 
organization  whose  sole  object  is  the  care  and 
prevention  of  this  evil  is  The  National  Child 
Labor  Committee.  The  honor  of  its  suggestion 
belongs  to  Edgar  Gardner  Murphy,  Secretary  of 
the  Southern  Education  Board,  Montgomery, 
Alabama.  Responding  to  this  suggestion,  the 
Child  Labor  Committee  of  New  York  City, 
which,  until  that  time  had  been  a  local  organ¬ 
ization,  appointed  three  of  its  members,  Dr. 
Felix  Adler,  W.  H.  Baldwin,  Jr.,  and  Mrs.  Flor¬ 
ence  Kelley,  to  act  as  a  Provisional  Committee, 

59 


doing  the  preliminary  work  needed  for  the 
organization  of  the  National  Committee.  This 
was  done  in  October,  1903,  and  in  April  of  the 
next  year  the  organization  was  consummated 
with  Dr.  Felix  Adler  as  Chairman;  Mr  Sam¬ 
uel  McCune  Lindsay,  Secretary;  Dr.  A.  J. 
McKelway  and  Mr.  Owen  R.  Lovejoy,  Assist¬ 
ant  Secretaries.  This  committee  is  no  substi¬ 
tute  for  local  committees,  much  less  does  it 
seek  to  undermine  local  initiative.  Its  purpose, 
on  the  contrary,  is  to  serve  as  a  clearing-house 
of  information  and  suggestion.  It  seeks  to 
create  committees  where  there  are  none,  to 
prevent  reduplication  of  effort,  and  to  make  past 
experience  available  for  the  future.  The  com¬ 
mittee  has  already  created  an  invaluable  literature, 
the  result  of  original  investigation,  held  annual 
meetings  with  unsurpassed  programs,  drafted 
new  laws,  and  secured  the  enforcement  of  exist¬ 
ing  statutes. 

The  attempt  to  thread  the  mazes  of  legis¬ 
lation  in  the  various  States  is  perhaps  futile,  but 
some  general  statements  seem  in  place  at  the 
conclusion  of  this  brief  historical  survey;  for 
example,  the  age  below  which  child  labor  is  pro¬ 
hibited  in  the  different  commonwealths  varies 
from  sixteen  to  ten  years.  Twenty-three  States 
prohibit  work  at  night.  Compulsory  school 
attendance  is  an  acknowledged  factor  in  the 

60 


HENRIETTA  M - ,  AGE  8 

YEARS 

One  of  an  uncountable  number  of 
American  juvenile  street  merchants. 


Street  traders  are  particularly  danger¬ 
ous  to  the  morals  of  children.  —  Charles  P. 
Neill ,  United  States  Commissioner  of 
Labor. 


*> 


wjJVBBsnr  of  rurwofa 

IMAHA 


♦ 


child-labor  problem,  but  State  laws  present  the 
perplexing  medley,  which  may  be  expected  where 
no  national  law  prevails:  the  age  to  which 
attendance  is  required,  varies  from  sixteen  to 
twelve  years;  the  length  of  the  annual  period  of 
attendance,  from  the  whole  year  to  eight  weeks. 
The  same  confusing  variety  maintains  in  the 
matter  of  officers,  and  pains  and  penalties,  to 
secure  enforcement  of  the  law.  Again,  an  edu¬ 
cational  requirement,  before  children  can  be 
legally  employed,  is  found  only  in  those  States 
which  have  the  most  advanced  child-labor  legis¬ 
lation;  eighteen  States  require  documentary 
proof  of  age  before  children  can  be  employed, 
but  the  District  of  Columbia  and  twenty-one 
States  and  the  territories  require  no  proof.  A 
considerable  number  of  States  prohibit  occupa¬ 
tions  dangerous  to  health  or  morals,  but  these 
laws  are  as  a  rule  non-enforced,  and  are  only 
appealed  to  in  cases  of  suit  for  damages  on 
account  of  injury  to  children. 

The  iniquity  of  this  unequal  legislation,  as 
between  State  and  State,  is  apparent.  Where  laws 
are  stringent,  manufacturers  are  put  into  unfair 
competition  with  those  who  operate  where  laws 
are  lax.  Nor  can  children  be  protected,  for  they 
can  easily  be  exported  to  regions  where  there  is 
no  prohibition.  In  view  of  this  vicious  medley 
of  State  legislation,  one  uniform  and  equitable 

61 


national  law  seems  imperative  to  secure  the 
beneficent  ends  desired.  It  should,  in  order  to 
be  operative,  have  adequate  means  of  enforce¬ 
ment,  including  officers  for  inspection  and  pains 
and  penalties  for  violation. 

Two  hopeful  tokens  appear  just  at  this 
juncture:  one  is  the  proposed  Congressional  bill 
to  create  a  National  Children’s  Bureau,  for 
research  and  publicity,  dealing  with  all  conditions 
which  affect  the  life,  health,  and  efficiency  of  the 
children  of  the  nation. 

Another  hope-inspiring  gleam  is  the  Bever- 
idge-Parsons  bill,  now  pending  in  Congress.  It 
is  a  proposition  to  exclude  from  interstate  com¬ 
merce  all  products  of  mines  and  factories  which 
employ  children  under  the  age  of  fourteen  years. 


62 


Excerpta 


Stop  the  murder  of  American  children! — 
The  Hon.  Albert  J.  “Beveridge,  in  United 
States  Senate ,  January  23,  i9o7 . 


The  horrors  incident  to  the  employment  of 
young  children  in  factories  or  at  work  anywhere 
are  a  blot  on  our  civilization. — President  Roose¬ 
velt,  Message  to  Congress. 

* 

The  slaughter  of  the  innocents  must  stop. 
It  is  a  national  crime  A  national  law  must 
end  it. — Senator  Beveridge. 

If  the  manufacturers  insist  that  without  these 
children  they  could  not  advantageously  follow 
their  trade,  I  should  say  that  trade  must  not,  for 
the  sake  of  filthy  lucre,  be  followed,  but  at  once, 
for  the  sake  of  society,  be  abandoned. — Judge 
Grose. 

Ye  friends  to  truth,  ye  statesmen,  who  survey 
The  rich  man’s  joys  increase,  the  poor’s  decay, 
’Tis  yours  to  judge  how  wide  the  limits  stand 
Between  a  splendid  and  a  happy  land. 

— Oliver  Goldsmith. 

65 


s 


The  serious  preparation  for  practical  life  be¬ 
gins  for  the  great  majority  of  us  at  the  age  of 
thirteen  or  fourteen,  on  leaving  the  elementary 
school.  The  most  dangerous  period  in  the  life 
of  a  boy  or  girl  lies  just  ahead,  say  up  to  the 
age  of  nineteen  or  twenty.  This  is  the  time 
when  the  average  boy  must  learn  to  be  self-sup¬ 
porting,  and  when  the  girl  must  fit  herself  for 
domestic  duties.  It  is  the  time,  too,  when  tech¬ 
nical  training  counts  for  most.  I  contend  that 
every  American  boy  and  girl  is  entitled  to  prac¬ 
tical  help  in  this  time  of  greatest  need,  and  at 
public  expense,  too,  if  the  State  maintains  high 
schools,  universities,  and  professional  schools  for 
those  who  aspire  to  leadership  in  professional 
life. — James  E.  Russell,  Dean  of  Teachers’  Col¬ 
lege ,  Columbia  University. 

We  must  not  grind  the  seed  corn. — Jefferson 
Davis,  when  urged  to  conscript  boys  for  service  in 
the  extremity  of  the  C  onfederacy. 

Let  there  be  an  irresistible  surge  of  earnest 
wills  to  hasten  the  day  that  shall  shut  the  gates 
of  the  glass  mills  in  the  faces  of  the  children 
now  flung  hourly  to  the  purring  tigress  of  the 
oven. — Edward  Markham — “The  Hoeman  in 
the  Making" — Cosmopolitan. 

66 


The  idea  still  prevails  that  the  parents  own 
the  child.  The  evils  to  the  child  are  disease, 
deformity,  and  ignorance,  with  often  no  indus¬ 
trial  training,  the  child  being  employed  in  drudg¬ 
ery  or  some  simple  mechanical  process.  Child 
labor  tends  to  depress  wages  and  to  develop  in 
the  community  an  ignorant,  criminal,  easily-pau¬ 
perized  element  accustomed  to  a  low  standard  of 
living. — The  New  International  Encyclopedia. 

As  ever,  there  are  two  ways — one  of  death, 
the  other  of  life.  There  is  the  quick,  short  cut 
to  immediate  aggrandizement.  It  is  over  the 
prostrate  forms  of  men,  women,  and  children. 
The  success  achieved  in  this  way  is  in  appear¬ 
ance,  not  in  reality ;  temporary,  not  permanent. 
The  way  of  life  is  by  positive,  progressive  social 
methods. — Felix  Adler. 


That  nation  is  hastening  to  ruin — even  to 
commercial  ruin — which  exploits  its  children  to 
increase  temporarily  its  wealth. — Edward  Howard 
Griggs. 


* 


It  may  be  stated  as  a  safe  proposition  that  for 
every  dollar  earned  by  a  child  under  fourteen 
years  of  age  tenfold  will  be  taken  from  his 
earning  capacity  in  later  years. — S.  W.  Woodward . 

67 


\ 


(V 


Never  again  can  the  problem  of  the  working 
children  in  this  Republic  be  regarded  as  merely 
a  local  one. — Florence  Kelley. 


For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  gov¬ 
ernment  Congress  is  apparently  legislating  in  be¬ 
half  of  the  children  of  the  whole  Nation. — Cin¬ 
cinnati  C  ommercial-Tribune,  Editorial. 


The  problem  of  the  children  is  the  problem 
of  the  State. — Jacob  A.  Riis. 

The  child  will  win.  The  stars  in  their 
courses  fight  for  him. — A.  J.  McKelway. 

Child  labor  is  a  menace  to  industry,  educa¬ 
tion,  good  citizenship,  and  to  the  health  of  chil¬ 
dren. — George  M.  Kober,  M.  D. 

* 

Child  workers  see  their  inferiority  in  body, 
mind,  and  soul,  caused  not  naturally,  but  by  their 
slavery.  They  are  robbed  of  intellect,  health, 
character,  and  God’s  light,  and  they  resent  it. 
They  turn  into  engines  of  wrath  against  society, 
and  breed  the  anarchistic  spirit. — Albert  J.  Bev¬ 
eridge. 


68 


The  child  should  be  put  above  the  dividend. 
— A.  J.  McKelway,  D.  D. 


And  were  it  necessary  to  employ  these  little 
boys  of  nine  and  ten  years  in  order  to  produce 
coal  at  a  reasonable  price — which  no  intelligent 
person  believes — better  mortgage  the  factory  and 
the  farm  and  the  store  and  the  church  and  the 
home  to  pay  the  coal  bill  than  put  a  mortgage  on 
the  efficiency  of  the  coming  generations  which 
may  require  centuries  to  lift. — Owen  R.  Lovejoy. 

Let  us  realize  before  it  is  too  late  that,  in  this 
age  of  iron,  of  machine-tending,  and  of  sub¬ 
divided  labor,  we  need,  as  never  before,  the 
untrammeled  and  inspired  activity  of  youth.  To 
cut  it  out  from  our  national  life,  as  we  constantly 
do  in  regard  to  thousands  of  working  children,  is 
a  most  perilous  undertaking,  and  endangers  the 
very  industry  to  which  they  have  been  sacrificed. 
We  may  in  time  learn  to  be  discontented  with 
the  pleas  which  we  continually  put  forth  on  be¬ 
half  of  more  adequate  child-labor  legislation,  de¬ 
manding,  as  we  continually  do,  that  the  child  be 
secured  his  normal  period  of  growth  and  his  full 
chance  to  acquire  such  education  as  the  State  is 
able  to  provide ;  we  may  in  time  add  to  that, 

69 


that  we  are  imperiling  our  civilization  because  at 
the  moment  of  its  most  marked  materialism  we 
wantonly  sacrifice  to  it  that  eternal  spirit  of  youth, 
that  power  of  variation  which  alone  prevents  it 
from  degenerating  into  a  mere  mechanism ;  that 
in  the  interests  of  industrial  efficiency  we  will  be 
obliged  to  extend  legislation  for  the  protection  of 
working  children. — Jane  Addams. 

\ 

Child  labor  is  a  National  problem  even  as 
public  education  is  a  National  duty. — Edgar  Gar¬ 
diner  Murphy. 

* 


Regardless  of  the  effect  on  prices,  or  wages, 
or  the  fortunes  of  particular  plants,  or  the  struggle 
between  the  hand-working  and  the  machine-oper¬ 
ating  factories,  or  the  strife  which  exists  to-day 
between  the  union  and  the  open  shops,  the  pub¬ 
lic  is  interested  only  to  see  that  glass — that  most 
wonderful  and  beautiful  of  our  manufactured 
products,  the  symbol  and  conveyer  of  light,  the 
highest  instrument  in  the  hands  of  sanitary  science 
and  the  healing  art — shall  be  made  without  bear¬ 
ing  beneath  its  polished  surface  the  lives  of  little 
children  who  have  been  burned  into  its  glittering 
substance. — Owen  R.  Lovejoy. 

70 


In  olden  times  the  blood  of  children  was 
smeared  on  bridges  and  walls  under  construction, 
or  their  bones  buried  beneath  them,  to  insure 
their  effective  completion.  Surely  America  will 
not  to-day  insist  on  demanding  such  a  sacrifice  of 
her  children.  But  sweatshop,  mine,  and  factory 
aie  making  such  demand. — Felix  Adler. 

It  is  fundamentally  wrong,  it  is  a  contradiction 
of  the  basic  principles  of  this  free  Republic,  that 
upon  the  shoulders  of  any  child  who  has  not  at¬ 
tained  its  full,  mature,  physical  development,  who 
has  not  enjoyed  a  reasonable  time  in  which  to 
play,  and  who  has  not  received  an  elementary 
English  education,  there  should  be  put  the  small¬ 
est  fraction  of  the  burdens  of  our  modern  com¬ 
petitive  industrial  life. — Samuel  McGune  Lindsay. 

Child  labor  is  pouring  torrents  of  political 
poison  into  our  citizenship. — Albert  J.  Beveridge. 

Legislation,  to  be  effective,  must  express  the 
collective  will  of  the  people.  I  might  call  it  the 
“  composite  ”  will  of  the  people,  for  it  must  be 
neither  the  idealistic  opinion  of  the  reformer,  nor 
the  opinion  of  a  self-centered  commercialism. 
In  these  days  of  betrayed  legislation  it  is  difficult 

71 


to  determine  whether  the  statute  laws  are  really 
the  voice  of  the  people.  If  they  are,  and  still 
are  hopelessly  inadequate  for  the  protection  of 
childhood,  it  is  useless  to  immediately  attempt  ad¬ 
vanced  legislation.  The  only  remedy  is  to  en¬ 
lighten  and  educate  public  opinion  to  a  proper 
appreciation  of  child  values.  But  if  the  legisla¬ 
tion  is  found  to  be  lower  than  the  plane  of  public 
opinion,  then  it  must  be  changed  in  conformity 
with  that  opinion  and  with  certain  well-defined 
principles. — Owen  R.  Lovejoy. 

It  has  been  always  considered  that  there  is  no 
better  test  of  civilization  than  the  way  women 
are  treated  in  society ;  but  there  is  a  better  test, 
and  that  is  the  way  we  treat  the  child.  By  as 
much  as  the  child  is  deprived  of  education  that 
will  enable  him  to  take  up  the  new  pace  that  in¬ 
dustry  sets,  and  then  to  mature  his  strength  and 
faculties  so  he  may  do  his  work  to  his  own  ad¬ 
vantage  and  to  the  advantage  of  society  gener¬ 
ally,  by  just  so  far  as  we  deprive  the  boy  of  the 
chance  of  lengthening  school  life,  we  are  not 
only  inflicting  rank  injustice  upon  him,  we  are 
unjust  to  the  future  of  the  family  and  to  the  com¬ 
munity.  Even  the  thing  called  civilization  is 
to  that  extent  defeated  and  discredited. — John 
Graham  Brooks. 


72 


WILLIE  M - ,  AGE  9 

Henrietta’s  brother. 


The  newsboy  in  many  instances  is 
exploited  by  parents. — Myron  E.  Adams. 


LIBRAS 

UWIVETi'SITY  OF  IU(NQ<8 
UWMNA 


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(A  Tentative  Seminar) 


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Jane  Addams. — Newer  Ideals  of  Peace  (chapter 
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London.  1907. 

Florence  Kelley. — Some  Ethical  Gains  Through 
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Josephine  C.  Goldmark. — Hand-book  of  Child 
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Edgar  Gardner  Murphy. — The  Present  South. 
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John  Graham  Brooks.  —  The  Social  Unrest. 
Macmillan,  New  York  and  London.  1903. 

x* 

Lynn  Barnard. — Factory  Legislation  in  Pennsyl¬ 
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75 


Allen  Clarke. — Effects  of  the  Factory  System. 
Grant  Rachards,  London.  1899. 

ip 

Whaley  Cook  Taylor. — Modern  Factory  Sys¬ 
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Evans  Austin. — Laws  Relating  to  Factories  and 
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1901.  * 

Adams  and  Sumner. — Labor  Problems.  Mac¬ 
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(Several  chapters  on  Child  Labor.) 

Sidney  J.  Chapman. — The  Lancashire  Cotton 
Industry.  University  Press,  Manchester. 
1904.  (Reviews  the  early  agitation  to  re¬ 
strict  by  law  child  labor  in  English  cotton 
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Robert  Hunter. — Poverty,  1904.  Macmillan, 
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* 

John  Spargo. — The  Bitter  Cry  of  the  Children. 
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* 

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Mrs.  John  Van  Vorst  and  Marie  Van  Vorst. — 
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1903.  Doubleday,  Page  and  Company,  New 
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* 

Edwin  Hodder. — Life  of  the  Seventh  Earl  of 
Shaftesbury.  Hoddar  and  Stoughton,  London. 

& 

Hutchins  and  Harrison. — History  of  Factory  Leg¬ 
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* 

Helen  Bosauquet. — The  Struggle  of  the  People. 
A  study  of  social  economics.  (Chapter,  The 
Children.)  Macmillan,  New  York  and 
London.  1902. 

& 

William  Cunningham. — Growth  of  English  In¬ 
dustry  and  Commerce.  (Chapter,  Conditions 
of  Childhood  Work.)  Macmillan,  New 
York  and  London.  1903. 

77 


Holland  Thompson. — From  the  Cotton  Field  to 
the  Cotton  Mill.  (Chapter,  The  Child  in 
the  Mill.) 

* 

H.  G.  Wells. — Mankind  in  the  Making.  Chas. 
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& 

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the  Employment  of  School  Children  in  Great 
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1902,  by  Eyre  and  Spottiswoode. 

* 

The  Law  Relating  to  Factories  and  Workshops. 
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Spottiswoode.  5th  edition.  1905. 

* 

The  Case  For  the  Factory  Acts.  Edited  by 
Mrs.  Sydney  Webb.  1901  Published  by 
Grant  Edwards.  (Also  bears  imprint  of  E. 
P.  Dutton  and  Company,  New  York.) 

Bound  volumes  of  “  Charities”  and  “Charities 
and  the  Commons,”  especially  those  covering 
1903-1906,  inclusive. 

78 


Publications  of  the  American  Economic  Asso¬ 
ciation.  Volume  V,  No.  2.  1890.  Con¬ 

taining  two  prize  essays  on  Child  Labor.  By 
Clare  de  Graffenreid  and  W.  F.  Willoughby. 

Report  of  the  Thirteenth  National  Conference  of 
Charities  and  Correction,  Atlanta.  Published 
at  Columbus,  Ohio.  1903. 

Report  of  Commission  on  Industrial  and  Tech¬ 
nical  Education.  Massachusetts  Senate  Docu¬ 
ment  No.  349,  April,  1906.  Boston. 

* 

Hand-book  on  Child  Labor  Legislation.  Pub¬ 
lished  annually  by  National  Consumers' 
Leage  to  1906,  inclusive.  Edition  for  1907 
published  as  a  supplement  to  the  January 
(1907)  issue  of  the  Annals  of  the  American 
Academy  of  Political  and  Social  Science. 
Can  be  secured  also  through  National  Con¬ 
sumers’  League  or  National  Child  Labor 
Committee,  105  East  Twenty-second  Street, 
New  York.  Price,  postpaid,  14  cts. 

Census  Bulletin  No.  69.  u  Child  Labor  in  the 
United  States.”  January,  1907 

79 


Woman’s  Home  Companion.  (A  monthly  pub¬ 
lication,  containing  official  department  of 
Notes  of  National  Child  Labor  Committee, 
beginning  with  January  issue.)  New  York. 

Bulletins  of  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Labor, 
Washington,  D.  C. 

No.  28,  May,  1900.  Article  on  foreign  labor 
laws.  By  W.  F.  Willoughby. 

No.  26,  January,  1900.  “Employment  of 
Women  and  Children  in  Belgium.”  By  W. 
F.  Willoughby. 

No.  30,  September,  1900.  “Foreign  Labor 
Laws.”  By  W.  F.  Willoughby. 

No.  62,  January,  1906.  Text  of  Child  Labor 
Laws  in  the  United  States  in  force  December 
31,  1905. 

Annals  of  the  American  Academy  of  Political 
and  Social  Science.  (Philadelphia.) 
Volume  XX,  July,  1902.  “Social  Legisla¬ 
tion  and  Social  Activity.” 

Volume  XXV,  No.  23,  May,  1905.  “Child 
Labor,”  a  series  of  papers  containing  also  the 
proceedings  of  the  First  Annual  Meeting  of 
the  National  Child  Labor  Committee.  Also 
reprinted  under  imprint  of  National  Com¬ 
mittee.  174  pages. 


80 


Volume  XXVII,  No.  2,  March,  1906. 
“  Child  Labor,  A  Menace  to  Industry,  Edu¬ 
cation  and  Good  Citizenship.”  Containing 
also  the  Proceedings  of  the  Second  Annual 
Meeting  of  the  National  Child  Labor  Com¬ 
mittee. 

Volume  XXIX,  No.  1,  January,  1907. 
“Child  Labor  and  the  Republic.”  Contain¬ 
ing  also  the  Proceedings  of  the  Third  Annual 
Meeting  of  the  National  Committee. 


81 


A  short  time  ago  I  went  down  to  the  Pottery  district, 
and  was  told  of  the  unspeakably  degraded  condition  in 
which  men,  women,  and  children  lived  before  the  law 
of  England  protected  the  weak  against  the  greedy  and 
strong;  and  I  say  that  when  Lord  Shaftesbury,  as  a  de¬ 
vout  believer  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  persuaded  his 
country — amid  the  opposition  of  John  Bright  and  a  great 
many  sincere  friends  of  the  people,  who  did  not  under¬ 
stand  the  bearings  of  the  question — to  decide  that  all  over 
England  the  weak  and  defenseless  should  be  protected  by 
these  acts,  he  did  more  to  establish  the  kingdom  of  Jesus 
Christ  than  if  he  had  merely  spent  his  time  in  preaching 
thousands  of  what  my  critic  would  call  Gospel  sermons. 
— Hugh  Price  Hughes ,  Social  Christianity . 


